


Soft and made of snow

by Vampiric_Charms



Series: Burns Most of All [43]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 05:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Madness, silence, centuries or seconds passing by in the space of breath - it means nothing when all is lost and you have little left to seek.  Or:  Sauron’s return from Taur-nu-Fuin to his lord’s side, and everything he brings back with him.





	Soft and made of snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naamah_Beherit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naamah_Beherit/gifts).



> Yes, hello. I'm peeking out from under my super heavy rock to bring you this angsty thing. Melkor is going mad, Sauron is...bleeding everywhere and just wants to crawl into the fire. What do you mean this isn’t canon and not exactly how it happened.
> 
> Thanks so much, Naamah, for pointing out I hadn't written this yet because once you did, _I couldn't leave it alone._
> 
> Enjoy!

Silence stretched on.  It was broken by howls of wind, and the pounding of ashy rain against the high walls of the fortress, or perhaps the fierce cry of dragons waiting for coming war - but Melkor was unmoved by these sounds in the bitter stillness of his throne room, unmoved by the calls of deep drums and the urgings of underlings with their tidings of the stalled warfront, or servers with great platters of food and drink.  Unimportant, all of it.  

His crown, broken and missing a precious, perfect, wondrous gem, listed precariously from one hand and he stared at it, _stared_ and _stared_.

He had not moved from his seat on that cold, rightful throne in days, months, years, centuries.  Time was meaningless, it was nothing, and he cared for naught in that endless span of memories, stretching out for nothing and no one.

His thoughts tumbled and ran together as the sun sank beyond the windows, stained with lead and casting such brilliant shapes across the dark stone floor - he lost track of himself as the sun vanished behind the mountains and windows and clouds and the moon took its place in the sky dotted with Varda’s stars.  Another day passed, another day alone.

The doors to the throne room creaked open, far across the way of that vast darkness between, and Melkor dragged his eyes over to watch a chief of the balrogs come in, flanked by two shuffling orc soldiers bogged with scrolls he did not have any interest in.  War games were Mairon’s place, his area of expertise to command the troops across the fields to glory, and yet he was not - he was -

“My lord?” the balrog croaked through the silence, through the howling wind outside, his voice a soothing bellows of licking flame that was nothing at all like the one missing.  Melkor glanced at him rather vacantly, and the balrog whose name made no appearance in the Vala’s memory took that as acquiescence enough to speak.

“We have updates from the scouts, my lord,” he said, no longer hesitating as he plucked a scroll forward, offering it up even when it was not taken from his grasp.  “Maps and requests for more armor.  The - ”  And here he did hesitate again, Melkor noticing the short look he threw at one of his smaller companions.  Both orcs shuffled nervously.  “The larders are running low on supplies as well, my lord, and our troops require food.  Shall I delegate this task to - ”

Melkor stood from his throne so quickly that one of the orcs dropped his scrolls, the parchment scattering at his feet with a startling kind of clatter as they unfurled.  The other took a step back from the expression of fury, the air of tension that had suddenly overtaken the room.  Only the balrog held his ground, and if his head lowered in a show of submission it likely kept his existence from being extinguished on the spot.   

“ _Out_.”

He watched as the three left the room, bringing their unwelcome noise with them, until he was left again in the splintering silence, with the wind and the darkness.  He set the scrolls left behind aflame with an indifferent wave of his hand, but no one was there to light the fires in the grates, or in the sconces set into the walls, and the doors closed to set him alone once more.

The larders, allocations of armor, repairs - these were Sauron’s role, part of his necessary function here.  To allocate them to someone else meant - _meant_ -

No.

He sank back down onto the hard stone of his throne, feeling the chill of it, the worn velvet of the seat, the smoothness of the arms beneath his hands.  Silence, coldness, wrapped around him like a heavy blanket, and he relished the solace of it.

Hours, minutes, centuries passed still, undisturbed, unbroken, alone, and he stared and stared at his broken crown where it had tumbled to the dais at his feet.  He left it there.

A clanging in the main hall jostled his wandering thoughts, and Melkor blinked slowly, tiredly, staring at the doors even as they remained closed.  Howls and yips of excitement were suddenly echoing through the corridors, the movement of many feet thundering by here and there, and jeering could be heard just beyond.  But then, suddenly, beyond the movement and the noise and the commotion, a _heat_ , a little tug against his mind.

Melkor sat up slightly from his slouch against the back of his throne, attention caught for the first time in those days or years or millennia, but the tiny prod was gone, drifting away with the wind.

A loud bang sounded just outside the throne room, smacking the wall hard enough to make the doors rattle, and raucous laughter was taken up with the chattering voices.  The flickering heat met him again, fainter this time, and he stood just as the doors of the throne room were shoved open by a huge mass of guffawing orcs.

“Here, Master!” one from the middle of the bunch called, voice gleeful.  His cry was immediately repeated by others.  “Look what we’ve found for you at the gate, Master, see what’s returned!  Look what finally came crawling back for scraps at your feet!”   

The sea of hundreds parted down the middle, enough for a smaller group to shoulder their way through.  They were holding a limp, bloody mess between them, sagging from their rough hold without any kind of fight, and they dragged it forward until the thing could be bodily thrown at the bottom of the stone dais.  Blood immediately began to ooze from scarcely healed wounds, caught up in matted hair and dirty clothing.  Even facedown, Melkor could see who this was.

“Bow to your lord,” one of the orcs crowed meanly, aiming a well-placed kick to ribs that were already broken.  Sauron did not make a sound as the blow landed, merely curling in on himself and leaving a smear of blood across the floor.

Melkor still could not see his face.

Orcs crowded in closer again, delighting in seeing their once high lieutenant fallen so low and failed so mightily.  They cawed at him, and one reached down to grab at his hair, yanking his head back hard from the floor.  This exposed the gored tatters around his neck, the knotted hair and soiled scraps of his high-necked robe and, finally, turned his face upward to the ceiling.  His eyes were opened to slits, not moving to focus on anyone even as the orc with the handful of his hair leaned over to say something untoward to him.  Not getting the response he wanted, the orc dropped Sauron to the floor and shoved him onto his back so others could close ranks.  

Blood began to slowly seep again from the wound around Sauron’s neck from the rough treatment and Melkor recognized, then, that it was not dirty clothing there but rather a ribboned cavity where his throat had been torn open and attempted to heal during his ever-long absence.

Emotion long soured and cooled began to thrum in his chest, and he took a single step down the dais from his throne.  The orcs parted for him immediately.

That little sparking heat jumped again and died just as quickly.

“What shall we do with him, Master?” one of the orcs asked, almost excited as Melkor came closer.

“Bring him to his own dungeons?” another suggested, and others took up the line of thought quickly with their own ideas.  “Leave him for his wolves?  Let the dragons have him?  Let him rot at your feet, Master, for abandoning you?”

_Abandon, abandon_.  The word rang in his ears, clanging angrily in his mind as the orcs shuffled animatedly around him as he reached the last step.  Sauron was directly beneath, staring blankly, wholly unseeing, up at the arching ceiling he had helped to build.  Had Melkor been abandoned?  Had he, when Mairon was right here, returned for his dying breath at Melkor’s feet?

Sharpness pierced through Melkor’s chest at the thought, aching and angry.  “Leave him with me,” he said, voice cold and brusque.

There was an abrupt scattering and scurrying as the orcs amassed in the throne room hurried to leave, all attempting to get out as quickly as possible.  It was not graceful, but it was certainly efficient.  Melkor did not watch, his eyes emotionless and fixed on Mairon unmoving on the floor.  In only seconds, they were alone and the silence pressed in around them.

The spark of heat was gone, and Melkor kneeled on the floor to touch Sauron’s unresponsive face and send out a small wave of power into his receded soul.  He was still alive.  His wounds were far more healed than they had appeared on first glance; the orcs’ mishandling of his physical form must have set back a bit of whatever restoration he’d been able to find, but he was not _dying_.  Not any longer.  

Another sharp burst of emotion shot through him, and Melkor took a short huff of breath to let it go.  Of course Sauron would not die - and of course he _returned_.  What treacherous, piteous thoughts.  Mairon would never abandon him.

Mouth set into a hard line, Melkor scooped the limp body up and over his shoulder, nearly as rough as the orcs had been, and ambled through the cavernous room to an empty fireplace.  He dropped Sauron there at the hearth, ignoring the small noise he finally, finally made with further mistreatment, and set about lighting a fire that had not been burning for a very long time.  

He had forgotten how to be gentle, but he stared at the shorn mess of Sauron’s hair as it spilled across the flagstone, his slack face with its sharp features, the dried blood that was staining it all.

“I will not finish healing you,” Melkor said to the nearly unconscious Maia beside him, rather more softly than he had intended.  He stood and withdrew, a surge of time-pale sentiment reeling him backward.  “If that is what you returned here for, me to take your wounds away.”

Sauron did not respond, but he instead moved slightly, rolling to his side and reaching an arm out until his fingers grazed against the great orange flames roaring before him.  Fire was all he needed now, they both knew so.  His eyes fluttered open for a moment, coherency flashing through them only briefly before they closed.

Melkor turned away, grumbling to himself about the blood-smeared tile and lack of thanks.

He took his throne once more, plopping down into it gracelessly as he kicked at the broken crown to send it skidding, and again he felt the little flicker of heat, the faint beating of something long since severed, prodding against his mind for reassurance and calm, giving and taking and fading away - and he knew, he knew that _abandon_ was never an option, never a sweep of thought through all the time apart.

The walls, the battery of defenses, around his inner self came down with a weary sigh and a torrent of memories not his own washed in, more explanatory and graphic in description and apology than those missing words could ever be.

The thread opened, appealing and bright and familiar with its blazing warmth, and Melkor pushed back with waves and waves of everything he thought he had forgotten.  Sauron did not speak, did not move from his curled place at the hearth far away across the room, but all was shared between them in those growing, twining fibers of their souls that had so long been shattered apart.

Silence stretched on, seconds, centuries, wrapping around them both together.  



End file.
